1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a window system which can display a plurality of windows to display means and which can execute a different operation processing for every window.
2. Related Background Art
In a conventional window system, in the case where a plurality of windows are displayed, since an overlapping of the windows is permitted, there is a situation such that the other windows are perfectly hidden in dependence on a display position and a size of the window. In the case where there are such a plurality of windows, since it is difficult to grasp the positional relation among the windows, in order to search the hidden window, the user repeats operations such as to move the window displayed in the highest order to the lowest order or to change the window of the highest order to an icon, thereby enabling the lower order windows to be seen, or the like.
As a method of grasping the positions of the windows, the following method has been realized.
First, there is a technique such as "Computer apparatus having a function to display a plurality of windows" disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-173743. According to such a technique, when there are overlapped windows, a mode is switched from an overlapping mode to a transparent mode and all of the hidden windows which cannot be seen are allowed to be seen, thereby enabling the position of the target window to be easily known.
In an X window system (registered trade name of X consortium), there is a tvtwm window manager to provide a virtual desk-top environment. According to such a window manager, a diagram reduced as a whole is displayed so as to know an arrangement of the windows displayed on a display and an operation is instructed for such a diagram, thereby realizing the movement of the actual window. Namely, in order to grasp the overlapping state of the windows, it is necessary to repeat the operations such as movement of the window, change to the icon, and the like.
Further, there is a layer display and operating function of MacDraw (registered trade name of Apple Computer Co. Ltd. in U.S.A.). Although such a function relates to an application software for forming a document instead of a window system, an overlapping state of pages (called layers) such that an image of a lower document can be transmitted and seen even when they are overlapped can be confirmed and operated by a menu. This shows that a technique such that the overlapping state can be grasped by a menu format although a relation with the window system is low exists as prior art. Different from the window, since the sizes of layers are fixed, the overlapping state can be grasped and operated by the menu format. However, a plane-like operation that is peculiar to the window such as movement of position or change in size cannot be realized by the menu format.
In the above conventional window system, means for easily grasping the overlapping state of the windows having a planar extent doesn't exist and means for enabling an operation to move the overlapped hidden window or to change a size of such a window to be directly executed doesn't exist.
Specifically speaking, the foregoing "Computer apparatus having a function to display a plurality of windows" has a drawback such that in the case where overlapped windows are displayed as a transparent mode, since all of the figures on the windows are seen all together, there is a case where it is impossible to judge which figure corresponds to which window and it is difficult to know the position of a target window. Particularly, when the number of overlapped windows exceeds three, it is practically difficult to grasp the overlapping state of the windows from the transparent mode, so that it eventually takes troublesomeness and time to grasp such an overlapping state.
Since the windows of the figures displayed on the virtual desk-top window are displayed like a plane in the above tvtwm window manager, there is a drawback such that it is difficult to grasp the overlapping state of the lower window.
Further, the layer display and operating function of the MacDraw mentioned above has a drawback such that the overlapping state of the layers is changed in only the vertical direction and the layers cannot be moved in the vertical and horizontal directions and a resizing (change in size of the window) operation that is peculiar to the window system cannot be performed.